After getting tired of
watching and waiting I went down to the trail where, to my astonishment,
I found the fresh tracks of a large bear which must have passed by that
way while I was sleeping. As a rule I do not like to be treated
discourteously, but in this instance I felt glad that this stranger had
passed me by.
On arriving at the fort late in the evening I found my friend in a
terrible state of mental excitement. He said that he had not slept a
minute during the whole of the night before. He had filled the door of
his room with rails, and sharpened one end of a long stick, which he
intended to use if necessary as a weapon of defence. When I arrived he
was again filling the door with rails. I had the gun, pistol and big
knife with me so this was his only means of defence. He said he would
not stay alone another night for all the gold in California.
I was much discouraged by our failures in hunting, and after a lengthy
discussion we decided to make another attempt to cross the mountains and
escape from what then seemed to us certain starvation. This was Thursday
night and we set Monday as the time for starting. By Saturday night
everything was in readiness for the start and Sunday we devoted to Bible
reading, for we each still had a pocket Bible. As much of the flesh of
the wolf and the lamented mule as we thought we could carry had been
thoroughly jerked, and finding that we would not be overburdened by it,
we economized by roasting and eating little scraps of flesh, the marrow
from the bones, and even the head of the mule was roasted, the fragments
of flesh scraped off and eaten, and Field found a rich fatty substance
in behind the eyes, which he ate.
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